


Emergent Properties

by DameRuth



Series: Flowers [29]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Sex, Gratuitous Science, If you have a problem with symbiotes/worms/parasites you might want to skip this one, M/M, Mind Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24810559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: The Doctor decides to try a little artificial love-life enhancement, and it's a weird ride even by Jack's standards.[Continuing the Teaspoon imports, originally posted 2009.06.01 - another personal favorite; I wanted to walk the tricky line between sex and squick, with an added dash of scientific thinky-thoughts, and I think I mostly got it to work.]
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Series: Flowers [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/14017
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	Emergent Properties

**Author's Note:**

> A while back, I wrote a drabble, ["Learning Experience"](http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=30212). Readers wanted to know what was in the little sphere, but I had no clue -- it was just a random McGuffin-y thing at that point. But when the [ Winter Companions](http://community.livejournal.com/wintercompanion/) Doctor/Jack community over on LJ issued a ["pr0n"](http://community.livejournal.com/wintercompanion/tag/challenge:+pr0n) challenge, I couldn't resist, er, fleshing out the idea. I wrestled with it for nearly a month, it ballooned into a huge (by my standards) 6,000+ words one-shot, and despite being more graphic than my usual, I'm not entirely sure it ended up as "pr0n" -- but I hope y'all enjoy it anyway! Part of the Flowersverse, contains alien!sex and science!porn; thanks to foalen and others for encouraging the addition of mind!sex. :)
> 
> **WARNING!: Possible biology/worm/parasite squick.** (It's all in good fun, but still . . .)
> 
> Also: Starts directly where "Learning Experience" ends, so it's probably best to read that snippet first.
> 
> Thanks to aibhinn for the beta, as always. :)

Jack was puzzled when the Doctor ended up dragging him to the TARDIS's swimming pool, rather than one of the many bedrooms available.  
  
"Um, Doctor, why here?" Jack asked as the Doctor dropped his hand and began fiddling with the still-mysterious little sphere.  
  
"Water, Jack!" the Doctor replied, with absentminded enthusiasm, still intent on the object he held. "We need water for this to work." Frustrated, he fished his glasses from a pocket and snapped them open.  
  
"Seems to work pretty well on dry land, at least if the last few dozen times count," Jack pointed out.  
  
"Hm? What? Oh, yes, _sex_ doesn't require water, obviously, but these little beauties do . . ." The Doctor frowned through his glasses at the recalcitrant sphere, then his features snapped into a wide grin. He positioned his fingertips carefully and pressed inwards. When he relaxed, the sphere popped open in neat halves. Inside was a packed mass of what looked coarse fiberglass threads.  
  
"Maybe it'd help if you told me what they were?" Jack hinted, looking over the Doctor's shoulder. He didn't have the faintest clue what he was seeing.  
  
The Doctor turned his head to glance at Jack. The Time Lord's eyes were wide and dark behind his spectacles and he radiated a powerful, if unusual, mix of randy expectation and mad-scientist glee. The tip of his tongue was firmly planted behind his upper front teeth, visible thanks to his open-mouthed grin. Jack felt a zing of answering arousal, mixed with trepidation. That particular look on the Doctor's face reminded him more of last-ditch plans and gigantic explosions than shagging with artificial enhancements.  
  
"Galfraxian mirror worms!" The Doctor announced. "Ever hear of them?"  
  
"No," Jack replied honestly. _Worms?_ "What do they do?"  
  
"Well, right now they're dormant, but dump 'em in water and they reconstitute. Then they'll act as neural bridges. Brilliant, isn't it? They're nearly as mythical as I am, but I tracked them down." The Doctor looked smug enough to purr.  
  
"Neural bridges . . . you mean, something like a pattern field? To let us share sensations?" Jack perked up as he made the connection. Now he could begin to see the possibilities.  
  
"Like a pattern field, but about sixty times better because they're biological -- biological systems always have greater subtlety than strictly mechanical ones, don't they, girl?" The last was addressed to the tiled floor, which the Doctor gave an affectionate swipe with the toe of his trainer; the TARDIS's background hum went more musical for a moment in return, faint hint of the golden song at her heart. "All those emergent properties in action. So!"  
  
The Doctor strode to the edge of the pool. Jack, now intensely curious, followed. Squatting down, the Doctor carefully shook the mass of translucent threads from their casing into the water, then stood up and stepped back, slipping off his spectacles and stowing them back in his suit pocket as he did so.  
  
The tight ball of filaments floated lightly on the surface, with no visible reaction to the water at all.  
  
"Come on, come on . . ." the Doctor urged under his breath.  
  
Abruptly, as if some critical mass had been reached, the ball of filaments sank like a stone . . . and then practically exploded, translucent threads uncoiling with a will as they drank in water at a prodigious rate, swelling, expanding and lengthening. The ends whipped blindly for a moment, but then began to move with purpose, as if seeking something. They spread outward, forming a wide mat just beneath the surface of the water.  
  
Jack's stomach rolled, his nascent arousal draining away. He was unpleasantly reminded of a writhing mass of hungry intestinal parasites; even for a fifty-first century guy that was a distinct turn-off.  
  
The Doctor, on the other hand, whooped with joy and began stripping off his clothes at high speed.  
  
"Whoa, wait a minute," Jack said. A few of the waving, questing "heads" broke the surface of the water, as if sensing the two men standing at the edge of the pool, and Jack could see what looked like sucker-mouths pulsing eagerly. His stomach rolled again, and he took a step back from the pool. "Exactly _what_ kind of worms are they?"  
  
"Told you," the Doctor wheezed, bent nearly double as he hopped on one foot, the other held in the air so he could work frantically at his shoelaces. "Galfraxian mirror worms."  
  
"You're gonna have to be a little more specific than that if you want me to get naked with those things," Jack qualified, putting an edge in his tone. One of the worms reaching out of the water was trailing a sucker-mouth eagerly along the edge of the pool, searching, leechlike, for an attachment. At least, that was what Jack assumed it was doing. A shudder ran down his spine.  
  
The Doctor succeeded in wrenching the trainer off his foot and tossed it absently over his shoulder as he straightened to frown at Jack. His suit jacket was off, as was his tie and the one trainer (though the other was still in place) and his hair was trying to go in every direction at once. He looked deliciously rumpled, deceptively young and quite confused. "What?"  
  
"Look, Doc, you of all people know I'm not a prude, but those mirror worms don't look sexy, they look like they want to suck our blood," Jack explained.  
  
The Doctor frowned down at the squirming mat in the water as if trying, and failing, to see Jack's point. "Well," he said, sounding puzzled. "That's probably because they do."  
  
_"What?!"_  
  
The Doctor turned his frown on Jack. "They're genetically modified from a type of parasitic worm that naturally re-routes the impulses of its host's sensory neurons to keep from being noticed while attached," he explained. He reached up and began undoing his shirt buttons in an absent-minded way, as if the part of his brain that wasn't focused on talking was still moving towards his original goal. "These are perfectly safe, though -- they've been engineered to take the minimum feeding possible while doing all kinds of interesting things with neural relays. Trust me, I made sure to scan their genetic material before I even thought about doing this, and they're exactly what it says on the tin."  
  
True enough; the Doctor might be reckless at times, but he wasn't stupid and he would know better than to intentionally release unknown biologicals on his ship. But still . . . "Define 'minimum feeding,'" Jack said.  
  
"A few teaspoonfuls of our blood. Nothing we'll notice," the Doctor said, shrugging in the process of slipping off his shirt and tossing it aside. "They get a bit of a nibble, we get a bit of a thrill and everyone's happy. Symbiosis at its best, really."  
  
"Who the _hell_ ever thought of turning parasites into sex toys?" The Doctor's complete lack of hesitation or disgust was infectious, and the continued removal of clothing was eroding Jack's resistance, but he still couldn't help asking.  
  
"A very interesting woman -- had some fascinating conversations with her after I tracked her down. A single-minded sort; now that I think about it, you two would get along brilliantly. Maybe I should take you to meet her someday. Or maybe not." In one smooth movement, the Doctor peeled his vest up and off, tossing it aside to lie more or less with the rest of his removed clothing. Then he smiled at Jack and stepped closer.  
  
Jack had to smile back. The Doctor knew exactly the effect he was having by showing off the bare, lean length of his torso, trousers riding low on his narrow hips and that sexy-smug little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Even with one shoe off and one comically still on, he was the very model of teasing promise. In fact, the touch of humor and vulnerability made him that much more attractive. _Calculating Time Lord bastard,_ Jack thought with affection.  
  
"Come on, Jack," the Doctor wheedled, mixing seduction with challenge, dark eyes sparkling. "Haven't you ever wondered what it's like from the other side? This is our chance to find out."  
  
"You make a persuasive case," Jack responded. The Doctor wasn't touching him, but he was standing so close Jack could smell the familiar honey-scent of his skin (no doubt liberally laced with pheromones, since it was going straight to the reptile portion of Jack's brain). The Doctor's smile widened, and the last of Jack's hesitation washed away. Not that the outcome was ever really in doubt, he had to admit to himself. The Doctor would always be able to talk him into anything.  
  
"All right — what's the worst that could happen? They drain us dry, you regenerate, and after we wake up I spend the next few decades razzing you about it."  
  
The Doctor laughed. "That won't happen, I promise. But if it'll make you feel better, I'll go first." He planted a quick kiss on Jack's lips, then spun away and attacked the laces of his remaining trainer. Jack, determined not to be beaten by too much of a margin, began shucking off his clothes as fast as possible.  
  
The Doctor was the first to reach his goal, having had a fair head start, and without hesitation he headed for the water, jumping in feet first with loose-limbed grace. He'd dumped the mirror worms into the shallow end of the pool, so when he resurfaced, he was only ribcage-deep in water. He shook water in a wide, sparkling arc from his sodden hair, and even as he did so, the worms were in motion.  
  
In one writhing wave, they moved for the Doctor's spine. He reacted to their impact by arching his back, head back, mouth open and eyes closed at the sensation. It was an expression that could have been pleasure or pain, and it stopped Jack cold in the middle of sliding trousers and pants to the ground.  
  
"Doctor?" he called, trying to suppress an edge of panic in his tone, mind already racing ahead to what he might possibly use as a weapon.  
  
The Doctor heaved in a deep breath, and his open mouth twisted into a wide grin. A crest of attached, wriggling worms traced a line from his scalp down all of his backbone visible above the water — and no doubt beneath it. His eyes opened; they were wide and dark and half-mad, but entirely _him_.  
  
"Oh, that's _weird_!" he said, half-laughing. "What are you waiting for? The water's fine."  
  
That was all the encouragement Jack needed. He finished divesting himself of the last of his clothing and imitated the Doctor's leap into the water, moving as quickly as possible to keep ahead of any possible failure of nerves.  
  
The water was indeed at a perfect temperature, the exact dividing line between warm and cool. A solid hand the same temperature as the water reached out and caught his forearm even as he was resurfacing, orienting Jack so he was facing the Doctor.  
  
Jack shook water out of his hair, meeting the Time Lord's wide brown eyes with his and focused on holding that contact, refusing to look to the side, willing himself to forget what he'd just seen. The Doctor shifted his grip, running his hand up to rest on Jack's shoulder, providing a physical token of support.  
  
A trail of hot/cold tingling ran up and down Jack's spine and scalp. It didn't hurt. He lost himself in the Doctor's gaze, and let it happen.  
  
The Doctor, no doubt understanding, held steady, anchoring Jack, his lips twitching into a delighted half-smile.  
  
"There," he told Jack after a moment. "Not so bad, was it?"  
  
"You can talk," Jack growled back. He felt nothing now except for a faint sensation of weight and pressure along his upper spine and neck.  
  
The Doctor grinned back. "I'd rather do this," he said, arching an eyebrow, before moving in for a kiss. It felt like a perfectly normal kiss at first, and Jack let himself be carried away by the Doctor's gentle technique, all soft lips and flickering tongue-tip. Jack flicked out his own tongue, catching the Doctor's . . .  
  
. . . And the mouth he was kissing was hot and cool at once; it tasted of honey at the same time it tasted of musk. The roof of his mouth was aching, sending little spikes into every one of his upper teeth, but the sensation wasn't unpleasant; there was an edge of exquisite pleasure to the pain, the sense of building pressure. He flicked his tongue over the ridged surface; the pressure exploded in icy-hot release and a rush of expelled sour-sweet pheromones that ratcheted desire to the next level, fulfillment and frustration at once.  
  
Jack broke away, gasping for air and equilibrium, but both were subordinate to the ferocious double-burn of desire washing through him. He stared into eyes that were brown and blue at the same time, pupils equally dilated; the view made him dizzy, so he closed his (their) eyes in favor of shared darkness. Hands grabbed hips and pulled bodies together, the heavy heat of Jack's erection pressed between them, and he felt it from both sides. He growled in response, and the word emerged as both a blunt English obscenity and something equally obscene but far more elaborate that required splitting his breath into chords.  
  
It was amazing, it was better than good, but it was disorienting as hell; seeking stability, Jack buried his face in the angle of the Doctor's neck, nibbling gently . . . and his hands were tangling in damp hair at the same time they were stroking the downy skin at the back of his partner's neck, and the world was focusing down into a single point even as it was expanding outward . . .  
  
_Too much,_ he thought, and at the same moment heard, _Didn't expect_ this _._  
  
Jack froze, physically, as he recognized the cool, vast darkness filling his head. _Doctor?_ he asked silently.  
  
The Doctor's forehead sank to rest on Jack's shoulder, his breathing hard and fast as a runner's, but otherwise he held himself very, very still. _I'm sorry,_ he responded after a moment. His inner voice was several orders of magnitude greater than his physical one. _It's just . . . being this close, it's hard not to. Is this all right?_  
  
Mental contact between them had always been careful and cautious, particularly from the Doctor's side. It wasn't just the usual reticence of naturally telepathic species; Jack knew the Doctor had suspicions about what might have happened during the Year, and shied away from the possibility of tearing open old wounds. The only truly relaxed mental contact they'd ever shared had taken place back when Jack's memories were temporarily lost. Even then, they'd used the careful mental analogies of houses and doors, rather than this more organic connection.  
  
_It's okay,_ Jack replied, hugging the Doctor close, hands positioned to avoid the attached mirror worms, his motives diverted from desire to reassurance. He carefully buried the memory of the Master's thoughts shattering against Jack's resisting immortal mind. The Master hadn't been pleased to learn -- painfully -- there was a part of Jack closed to him by its very nature, and it hadn't helped that Jack had laughed aloud at the sight of a Time Lord curled retching on the floor . . . but that was then and this was now, and the Doctor had the key to Jack's thoughts by virtue of shared trust and familiarity. _I think it's helping._  
  
Humans weren't telepathic by nature, but Jack had experience and training, so he did his best to spread his thoughts, brushing the fringes of his self affectionately against the soft presence that enveloped him. The Doctor's mind was insubstantial as air, but Jack, having seen tornadoes and hurricanes in action, could guess what a lie that softness was and what terrible steel lay beyond. That was nothing to do with him, though, and he felt no fear.  
  
The Doctor laughed, the sound breaking into music as he caught his physical breath. _That tickles,_ he thought. _Cheeky!_  
  
Jack didn't bother subvocalizing and simply bounced the thought back with an edge of humor.  
  
The Doctor relaxed in Jack's arms and ran his lips experimentally along Jack's collarbone. They both felt the action and response, but it wasn't as confusing as before. Counter-intuitive as it seemed, adding mental contact made it easier to bear the physical interconnectedness.  
  
"I think the tin could use an added warning label for cross-species use," the Doctor said aloud, with rueful humor.  
  
Jack shrugged, rubbing his cheek against the Doctor's hair. _"Vive la difference?"_ he suggested.  
  
"You're slipping," the Doctor told him, shifting to murmur against Jack's pulse, marveling at the sheer, determined, human-hot _drive_ of it. "That was correct."  
  
"Can't get it wrong every time," Jack said, bringing his fingertips around to rest on the large artery of the Doctor's neck, to share the cool, complex, syncopated pattern it made against human skin.  
  
_So . . ._ the Doctor said without words, and the exploration began in earnest.  
  
Given that they were chest deep in water, with masses of symbiotic-not-parasitic worms trailing down their spines, there weren't a lot of positioning options. ( _We can work on that later, for the next time,_ the Doctor was thinking to himself.) It wasn't a problem, really; standing up worked just fine for both of them. They'd christened a lot of tight spaces together, and Jack knew of at least one broom closet in the Universe that would never be the same. The Doctor was careful to control his strength where Jack was concerned, but sometimes their surroundings weren't so lucky.  
  
_Not just me,_ the Doctor thought, without pausing what his mouth was doing to Jack's left nipple. _I remember a chair . . . Poor chair._  
  
The memory of splintering wood was sharp and clear, pictured simultaneously from both sides of the incident. In retaliation, Jack ducked down and caught the Doctor's mouth in a kiss. When he eased back upright, the Doctor followed, drawn by the way Jack's tongue caressing the roof of his mouth was sending icy-hot spikes of pleasure through his teeth and jaw, an effect that increased as Jack slid his hands down to rest at the Doctor's waist and his thumbs began making small, tight circles over the rapidly-swelling pair of glands just in and down from the sharp point of his hipbones.  
  
Jack's moment of smug triumph disintegrated when the Doctor's clever, incredible hands began doing exactly the thing that had once led to a broken chair. Jack wrenched his mouth free of the Doctor's, gasping in reflex, and the Doctor rumbled a split note in the back of his throat, savoring both Jack's reaction and the reflected physical pleasure. One hand slipped around Jack's back, delicately picking around the attached worms to find nerves there that nobody else had ever touched, sending a deep shudder through Jack's frame.  
  
_Two can play at that game,_ Jack thought, the concept without the words, and knew the Doctor heard him. Any other time, the level of connection they were achieving would have caused one or both of them to pull back, but in that moment it felt exactly right. Jack had just enough separate awareness to realize that he was in the grip of something even more powerful and mind-altering than the Grail.  
  
_Sexual arousal is_ always _an altered state of consciousness,_ the Doctor thought in response, _Even without the Grail._ The concepts in his mind surfaced sharp, whole and complete, bubbles in champagne compared to the fuzzy, trailing ribbons of human thought. Jack understood for the first time why Gallifreyan was written in closed, patterned circles, neatly encapsulated. Normally he would have found that interesting, but just then all he was interested in was what happened when he pushed his thumbs firmly in and down against the Doctor's taut, full hip glands, forcing them into sudden, explosive contraction.  
  
The Doctor's back arched convulsively as he stopped breathing altogether. The chill flood of internally released chemicals spread a new wave of arousal through the Doctor's lower abdomen, another segment of the arc clicking into place, beginning to describe a curve back to the inevitable conclusion.  
  
Rather than trying to recover, the Doctor let gravity ease his loosening muscles into a controlled slide down Jack's body; since he wasn't breathing anyway, it made no difference to him when the water closed over his head, but the change in position conveniently took him down out of Jack's reach while giving him access to new portions of Jack.  
  
The Doctor could feel the radiant heat of Jack's skin from several centimeters away. When he parted his lips in preparation, he could taste Jack in the water even before his lips touched the human. The pheromones and hormones soaked through the membranes of the Doctor's mouth and into his blood, speaking a strange language that the Doctor's habituated body nonetheless understood. It was unnatural and impossible and wonderful — rather like Jack himself, blazing in the Doctor's awareness like a man who'd swallowed a star.  
  
The Doctor's mouth closed on the softness-over-steel of Jack's erection and the touch spiked Jack's arousal, that incredible engine of driving, linear desire that tightened the boundaries of Time into just a string of moments and Space into just the area occupied by their bodies. So narrow, so immediate, so alien -- the mindset and worldview as much as the anatomy and physiology. Reality was very simple for humans, even though they didn't seem to think so.  
  
_Different from the inside,_ Jack managed to respond as his hands came to rest, lightly, on the top of the Doctor's head. The urge was there to grab, to thrust, but it was controlled, Jack as careful of the Doctor as the Doctor was of him, which wasn't something the Doctor had considered before now. It surprised him. After all he'd been through, he didn't expect anyone or anything to be gentle with him.  
  
Jack wasn't so wrapped up in touch that he failed to miss the Doctor's surprise, and it broke his focus briefly. _Just because we’re ape-descended doesn’t mean all humans are knuckle-dragging cavemen,_ he commented, a quick snap of wry thought, but the fingertip that moved to trace the outer rim of one of the Doctor's ears did so with a feather-soft touch. _I thought you'd been there yourself . . . oh,_ yes, _likethatdon't_ stop!  
  
The Doctor's did remember being John Smith, but those memories were twisted, stunted and warped, having been filtered through a human brain. Human time experienced now, with the fullness of a Time Lord's senses, was something entirely new. He wallowed in it with delight, abandoning the rest of the Universe in a wave of glorious irresponsibility, entirely wrapped in the present, aware only of the texture of his tongue scraping along the underside of Jack's penis, his hands teasing complimentary sensations from testicles and perineum.  
  
The moment broke with a slightly increased pressure from the pads of Jack's fingers and a strangled murmur of, "Doctor!" The water muffled the sound, but the word was spoken mind-to-mind as well, with the added comment, _We have to slow down unless we want this to be over_ way _too soon._  
  
_I thought you had better control than that,_ the Doctor teased, releasing Jack and rising, beginning to breathe again after a quick, matter-of-fact snort to clear the water from his nostrils.  
  
"Normally I do," Jack said, gulping air and speaking aloud from habit. "But right now I've got what feels like ten pounds of seriously freaky nerve worms hanging off my back, and even for us this isn’t close to normal, so I'm not taking any bets." _And speaking of control . . ._ He traced his fingers along the Doctor's lower belly, following the lines of erectile tissue mapping out hidden structures, describing a complex pathway that ended by clicking the next segment of the pattern into place. The Doctor's startled cry cracked into hoarse thirds, echoing from the tiles and water.  
  
Jack grinned. He couldn't replicate the Doctor's underwater routine, needing air on a continuing basis, but he could take a few impressive shortcuts in terms of unlocking the intricate puzzle-box of the Doctor's body. A brush of the fingertips, a twist with the thumbs, a scrape with the knuckles . . .  
  
Sequential fireworks rattled the Doctor's body, and he clenched his teeth with the intensity of it, head thrown back, tongue helplessly pressed to the roof of his own mouth as Jack pushed him through the stages of arousal at what a Time Lord would consider a breakneck pace. His mental state followed suit, ratcheting up and outwards, senses expanding and carrying Jack along for the ride.  
  
There was the TARDIS in all her complexity, summed up by a single, rounded word in Gallifreyan that described everything about her in a way Jack could almost, but not quite, grasp. Outside her capsule was the Vortex, whirling and chaotic, everywhere and nowhere, interpenetrating Reality without touching it, every atom and nanosecond bound together as the great and ancient Dance of matter and energy went on from one end of Time to the other (which might or might not be the same end approached from different directions depending on whether or not the Universe was an eight-dimensional torus, but not even a Time Lord could perceive enough at once to be certain).  
  
_This is what you see all the time,_ Jack thought, caught up in the soaring wonder of concepts and perception.  
  
_Not so clearly, usually,_ the Doctor answered without words, because their mouths were locked together in a slow, passionate kiss, echoing the interplay of greater forces in a small but joyous way, two tiny pieces of the Universe, remembering what it was to be more than just themselves. _But . . . yes._ His hands began to work under the water, bringing Jack even with him again in the race they both would win.  
  
No things so mismatched should fit together so _well_ as the two of them; but that was the Dance, always stranger, more unpredictable and more intriguing than any mind could imagine, once all those complex pieces began to interact in earnest and new effects emerged.  
  
With a flicker of humor, Jack slipped his hands around the Doctor's waist for leverage ( _I'll give you "interaction."_ ) and began to rub his hardness against the Doctor in all the right places, directing the motion with careful movements of his hips.  
  
The Doctor stopped breathing again and rolled his head back in pure pleasure, a trickle of water running down his spine from his hair, paralleling the trail of attached symbionts. Water, now there was amazing stuff: just hydrogen and oxygen, two elements together, but they made the most bizarre substance with all sorts of weird, unexpected properties that in turn made so many forms of life possible, like the high heat capacity that helped humans burn hot and Time Lords burn cold — and what Jack was doing felt _amazing_ , sending his thoughts spiralling even further afield.  
  
Jack ran his tongue along the curve of the Doctor's throat, suppressing a physical grin, though there was no reason to when his mind still shaped the feeling freely. A flash of memory from a few months ago, Jack's time, when the Doctor had briefly decided that "frot" was his new favorite word, both for the activity it denoted and, apparently, the sheer, dirty fun of shaping it on his tongue.  
  
_And because it made you laugh,_ the Doctor admitted, rolling his head back upright and resting his hands gently on Jack's shoulders for leverage as he began to move his hips in counterpoint, not a natural rhythm for him, but one he'd picked up easily enough. _Short and direct and perfectly human. At what point does our biology define our minds, our words, and does the current ever run the other way . . .?_  
  
Jack growled deep in his throat, and sped up the pace. _Less philosophy, more fucking._ he thought, dropping out of subvocalization and into raw concepts as his animal instincts took over, pushing relentlessly forward. He obeyed them gladly, dragging the willing Doctor with him. He could feel his release building painfully; he was right on the edge, desire pushed so high the potential fall was almost terrifying. Language surfaced again for a split second. _If I come now, I think my head might explode . . ._  
  
The Doctor groaned aloud in a rough-edged chord of agreement. It sounded pained to the outer ears, but his mind was reckless and merry. _Mine, too. Last one back alive can clean up._  
  
Jack wanted to laugh but couldn't; he was too far gone. He just needed that last push, they both did. Hands and bodies shifted, began to move again, and then everything finally clicked into place, circle and straight line intersecting at last. Orgasm hit as hard, fast and uncompromisingly as a thunderbolt, both conjoined minds making the same comparison at the same time, both having experienced lightning strikes firsthand. The intensity was so great it went past pleasure and into a place where heat and cold, words and feelings, names and species, even Time itself, were meaningless, whited-out, gone . . .  
  
Reality came seeping back, and Jack and the Doctor slumped against one another for support, arms going around loosely around each other as they both began to laugh; there was no other sane response for what they'd just experienced. _Still got our heads,_ was Jack's first actual thought.  
  
_Speak/think for yourself,_ the Doctor responded, subsiding into giggles. _I'm not sure about me. Black hole and supernova at the same time._  
  
The comparison was apt, and Jack laughed harder. "Yeah," he agreed aloud, resting his forehead on the Doctor's shoulder. His head was spinning, and felt like it might take a moment to clear. His back tingled, and he heard a series of soft, suction-cup _pop_ s and watery splashes. He raised his head for a groggy look over his shoulder in time to see the last of the mirror worms release its hold on him and drop into the water.  
  
There was a considerable mass of them, floating limp and tangled just under the water's surface. Through their translucent flesh he could see that every worm now had a thin core of bright red running down its length. The sight didn't bother him, nor did he begrudge the payment; right at the moment, he felt a great and benevolent love for everything in the Universe, creepy bioengineered sex-toy worms included. Hell, he'd have gladly parted with a solid _pint_ of his blood for a party like the one he'd just had.  
  
He dropped his head back onto the Doctor's shoulder, realizing that he had his eyes open again for the first time in who knew how long, and that his body was entirely his again. The sensation was a little lonely, but also a relief. _That was a lot of fun, but I don't think I could do it every day,_ he thought, subvocalizing rather than speaking out loud. Their nervous systems might have separated following the loss of the worm bridge, but their minds were still joined.  
  
_Mmmm, that's good, because neither could they,_ the Doctor thought in reply, meaning the worms. He rubbed his cheek against Jack's damp hair. _And neither could I._  
  
They stood a moment more in the radiant afterglow, but then it was time to finish separating. By mutual agreement, they began to pull their thoughts apart; it wasn't until they did that Jack realized how deep the mental penetration had been. It was like parting physically with a lover and suddenly feeling every inch of the joining, along with the ache it left behind. _I wonder if the inside of my head will be sore in the morning,_ Jack thought, _and is there such a thing as brain lube for the next time?_  
  
There was no answering echo; the Doctor had completely withdrawn and Jack's mind was his own once more. Again, the sense of relief was greater than the sense of loss; it felt good to reestablish himself as an individual with proper boundaries again.  
  
"I'm hungry," the Doctor said out of nowhere, sounding surprised. His body was far colder than usual against Jack's flushed skin, even with the buffering effect of the water surrounding them. _His metabolism must have been racing to drop his superficial temperature like that._  
  
Jack felt hungry, too, he realized, but it was a normal reaction for him, yet another species quirk. "So am I -- we'll make an honorary human of you yet."  
  
The Doctor glared. "Bite your tongue."  
  
"I'd rather bite yours."  
  
"Hopeless," the Doctor declared with a haughty sniff, then ruined his attempted air of superiority with a wide grin. " _Allons-y_ \-- galley!" He crossed to the edge of the pool and vaulted up and out of the water as gracefully as a seal.  
  
Before the Doctor turned and hunkered down, offering his hand, Jack could see a long line of round, red sucker marks trailing from the Doctor's hairline down his spine to his tailbone. No doubt Jack' s own back looked the same, though he didn't feel any pain or itching. Those worms really were a fine piece of engineering.  
  
_We're both pretty marked up this time,_ Jack thought with satisfaction. _Though I don't know how the hell I'm going to explain this one to Ianto._ He walked to the edge of the pool and accepted the Doctor's helpful grip, forearm to forearm. Not that Jack needed assistance, but he wasn't about to turn it down, not here and not from this man.  
  
The Doctor hefted him up with his usual disconcerting ease, and steadied Jack until he was sure of his balance. Jack spared one last look into the water; the worms that had been attached to the Doctor were indistinguishable from the ones that had been on Jack; Time Lords had iron in their blood, same as humans, and from this distance it all looked an identical red.  
  
"What do we do with them?" Jack asked, curious now that he was no longer disgusted.  
  
The Doctor shrugged. "Let them float and metabolize for a while, then we scoop them up with the pool skimmer so they can dry out and go dormant. They'll need a rest." He tossed Jack a towel.  
  
"Me, too," Jack said. He was already feeling sleepy, in addition to being hungry. "C'mon, let's go eat before I crash. Do you still have some of that cheese-dip stuff from X'cor'ica?" Finished with his cursory drying-off, he tossed the towel over a deck chair and started walking as he spoke, not bothering to get dressed. Everything would be fine where it was, and with just the two of them aboard the TARDIS was a decidedly clothing-optional zone.  
  
The Doctor fell into step beside him, frowning and rubbing his earlobe. "You know, I'm not sure. If I do, it'll have developed a second life of its own by now, though."  
  
Jack stopped in his tracks, then reversed direction.  
  
"Where are you going?" the Doctor called after him.  
  
"Back to get my pistol. If you haven't cleaned the fridge for a while, I'm probably gonna need it."  
  
A cool, strong, inexorable hand closed over Jack's shoulder, spun him around, and gave him a solid push between the shoulderblades in the direction of the galley, all in one smooth movement.  
  
"I guarantee, there's nothing in the refrigerator we couldn't fend off with the broom if we need to," the Doctor said, firmly, but with an amused undertone.  
  
"Optimist," Jack retorted.  
  
"Look at it this way," the Doctor said, expansively cheerful. He draped a friendly arm around Jack's shoulders as they walked. Very chummy, but Jack suspected it was more about cadging body heat. "It's an adventure."  
  
Jack shot him an affectionate, sidelong glance. The Last Time Lord: damp, stark naked, freckly all over, with hair that was currently downright scary and a crazy grin that was even scarier. Jack might not be up for another session with Galfraxian mirror worms for a while, but after some food and some rest he was definitely going to be ready for a good, old-fashioned shag and a few orgasms that weren't psychedelic mind trips. Not to mention that, having a new perspective on the Doctor's body, he had a whole slew of ideas to try out.  
  
But he hadn't been entirely joking about the pistol. He'd _seen_ how bad the fridge could get when the Doctor had neglected things too long and the TARDIS decided to let him suffer the consequences.  
  
"Everything's an adventure with you, isn't it?" Jack asked, the most rhetorical question of his long life to date.  
  
"Oh, yes," the Doctor breathed, and together they went to conquer the unknown horrors of the galley.  


* * *

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This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=31158>


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